3rd-party Anbox installed but crashes when run

From the OpenSuSE packages search, I added and/or installed Anbox on my OpenSuSE 42.3 sans a problem. However, when I tried to launch Anbox from Menu -> System -> Anbox, an empty Anbox desktop came up with an Android icon in the middle and a Starting … message underneath the icon before it terminated. Then, I launched anbox from CLI and it says that Anbox session manager service isn’t running (see the excerpted message below). Am I supposed to run Anbox as a service, but how? I certainly will appreciate some helps here.

[habibie@linux:/home/local/PEOPLE/habibie 279%] ~ anbox launch --package=org.anbox.appmgr --component=org.anbox.appmgr.AppViewActi
vity
 2018-01-22 13:21:12] [launch.cpp:134@operator()] Anbox session manager service isn't running, trying to start it.
 2018-01-22 13:21:17] [launch.cpp:134@operator()] Anbox session manager service isn't running, trying to start it.
 2018-01-22 13:21:22] [launch.cpp:134@operator()] Anbox session manager service isn't running, trying to start it.
 2018-01-22 13:21:27] [launch.cpp:206@operator()] Couldn't get a connection with the session manager
[habibie@linux:/home/local/PEOPLE/habibie 280%] ~

From a quick look at the package, it does indeed contain a anbox-session-manager.service (which is a user, not system, service).

So, this, run as user and not root, should start it for your user:

systemctl --user start anbox-session-manager

This should make it start automatically on login:

systemctl --user enable anbox-session-manager

Although, all the service does is run “/usr/bin/anbox session-manager”, you could probably just do that manually as well.

As I understand the included documentation (in /usr/share/doc/packages/anbox/), the session manager is what actually displays the GUI/windows. A system service wouldn’t be able to do that.

Please note that I never used that package.
It would probably be best to contact the person providing the package in case of problems.

Thank you for your quick response with the information. Unfortunately, your suggestions don’t work (see the excerpt below) unless I did something wrong. Perhaps, it is best to contact the author of this package.

[habibie@linux:/home/local/PEOPLE/habibie 309%] ~ systemctl --user start anbox-session-manager
[habibie@linux:/home/local/PEOPLE/habibie 310%] ~ anbox launch --package=org.anbox.appmgr --component=org.anbox.appmgr.AppViewActivity
 2018-01-27 13:40:35] [launch.cpp:134@operator()] Anbox session manager service isn't running, trying to start it.
 2018-01-27 13:40:43] [launch.cpp:134@operator()] Anbox session manager service isn't running, trying to start it.
 2018-01-27 13:40:48] [launch.cpp:134@operator()] Anbox session manager service isn't running, trying to start it.
 2018-01-27 13:40:54] [launch.cpp:206@operator()] Couldn't get a connection with the session manager


[habibie@linux:/home/local/PEOPLE/habibie 311%] ~ systemctl --user enable anbox-session-manager
Created symlink from /home/local/PEOPLE/habibie/.config/systemd/user/default.target.wants/anbox-session-manager.service to /usr/lib/systemd/user/anbox-session-manager.service.
[habibie@linux:/home/local/PEOPLE/habibie 312%] ~ anbox launch --package=org.anbox.appmgr --component=org.anbox.appmgr.AppViewActivity
 2018-01-27 13:41:27] [launch.cpp:134@operator()] Anbox session manager service isn't running, trying to start it.
 2018-01-27 13:41:32] [launch.cpp:134@operator()] Anbox session manager service isn't running, trying to start it.
 2018-01-27 13:41:37] [launch.cpp:134@operator()] Anbox session manager service isn't running, trying to start it.
 2018-01-27 13:41:42] [launch.cpp:206@operator()] Couldn't get a connection with the session manager
[habibie@linux:/home/local/PEOPLE/habibie 313%] ~

I have to admit that I never used that user service stuff, so my commands may be incorrect…

Try running the service manually before running your “anbox launch …” command, as I also suggested.

/usr/bin/anbox session-manager

(as user, of course, not root)

PS: this command may give a clue why the user service doesn’t seem to work as expected.

systemctl --user status anbox-session-manager

There are two open bugs upstream (one is mine).
Also look at the comments section here.

Hope this helps…

Cris